Exploiting Cognition in ISAR Processing for Spectral Compatibility Applications

TL;DR

This paper presents a cognitive ISAR system that dynamically perceives the environment, synthesizes tailored waveforms with spectral notches, and recovers missing data to ensure spectral coexistence and high-quality imaging in crowded RF environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cognitive ISAR approach that combines environmental perception, tailored waveform synthesis, and advanced data recovery methods for spectral compatibility.

Findings

Effective spectral coexistence demonstrated with drone data in 13-15 GHz band.

High-quality ISAR images achieved despite spectral notches.

System successfully recovers missing data in frequency and slow-time domains.

Abstract

This paper introduces and analyzes the concept of a cognitive inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) ensuring spectral compatibility in crowded electromagnetic environments. In such a context, the proposed approach alternates between environmental perception, recognizing possible emitters in its frequency range, and an action stage, synthesizing and transmitting a tailored radar waveform to achieve the desired imaging task while guaranteeing spectral coexistence with overlaid emitters. The perception is carried out by a spectrum sensing module providing the true relevant spectral parameters of the sources in the environment. The action stage employs a tailored signal design process, synthesizing a radar waveform with bespoke spectral notches, enabling ISAR imaging over a wide spectral bandwidth without interfering with the other radio frequency (RF) sources. A key enabling requirement for the proposed application is the capability to successfully recover possible missing data in the frequency domain (induced by spectral notches) and in the slow-time dimension (enabling concurrent RF activities still in a cognitive fashion). This process is carried out by resorting to advanced methods based on either the compressed-sensing framework or a rank-minimization recovery strategy. The capabilities of the proposed system are assessed exploiting a dataset of drone measurements in the frequency band between 13 GHz and 15 GHz. Results highlight the effectiveness of the devised architecture to enable spectral compatibility while delivering high-quality ISAR images as well as additional RF activities.